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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

At our Wilson family cookouts, there are two things that can
always be counted on: Anheuser-Busch beers and the booming voices of my uncles.

You’d develop a booming voice, too, if you’d grown up in a
family of five boys who were separated in age by just seven years. My dad and
his four brothers must have felt the need to out-boom each other in order to be
heard over the din of pretending to kill one other (a mother-torturing incident
involving ketchup, a white t-shirt, a dart, and a little boy sprawled out on
the floor) and actually almost killing themselves (metal toboggan runners to
the face, a near-drowning in the Saco River, knocked out teeth, bike-riding
wipeouts on railroad tracks, hockey pucks to the forehead…the list is a long
one).

Five wild boys and their dad, 1965

Brothers and their Bud Light cups 47 years later

So I think the booming is an honest byproduct of that.

As familiar to me as my uncles’ voices—especially in
the form of their joyful, unguarded laughter—are the Budweiser, Busch, and Michelob
Ultra cans and bottles that are in their hands at every family event. For my
Uncle John, it’s Budweiser in bottles; he’ll reputedly walk out of a restaurant
that doesn’t serve it. For Uncle Paul it’s Michelob Ultra, and for Uncle Mike
it’s Busch.

I admit that I didn’t inherit their affinity for light beer,
or their booming voices, either. I’m a craft beer drinker (although not a beer
snob) and am actually one of the more soft-spoken members of my family.

That’s why I wasn’t sure what to expect during a Beermaster
Tour and food pairing at the Anheuser-Busch Merrimack Brewery in Southern
New Hampshire.

Brian gamely poses at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery

But I was immediately and pleasantly surprised when the tour
began with a sample of Shock Top Chocolate Wheat, a beer that I didn’t know was
brewed by Anheuser-Busch. We sipped the darkly colored beer, which had notes of
vanilla mingled with chocolate, and heard from our tour guide, Chris, about the
history of the 162-year-old brewery and the story behind its famous Clydesdales (they were a seriously ballsy gift from August and Adolphus
Busch to their father to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition).

Next, we suited up like air traffic controllers in goggles,
reflective vests, and headsets that allowed us to hear our tour guide in loud
areas of the brewery—we were
venturing into a busy factory, after all—and set off.

I think warning yellow is our color

On the tour with Brian and me were three other guests:
Rob—sporting a “This Guys Needs A Beer” T-shirt with two cartoon thumbs
pointing up at his head—his wife, Jennifer, and their friend, Valerie, all of
whom were enthusiastic Budweiser drinkers and brewery tour regulars. In fact, Rob
said he had “tears in his eyes” the first time he saw the massive Bud Light
finishing tanks where the beer rests before being bottled and pasteurized.

This affable guy got a bunch of beer

I didn’t have tears in my eyes, but I was impressed by the
precision and care that goes into ensuring that every single bottle of
Budweiser tastes exactly like what my Uncle John expects it to taste like. We
even got a peek into the mission-control-like room where wall-to-wall computers
measure and calibrate every aspect of the brewing process.

The highlight of the tour was getting to sample Bud Light
right from one of the finishing tanks, which Jennifer promised would be “the
best beer you’ll ever taste.” Chris tapped the tank and gave us each a glass of
the unpasteurized, super-cold beer, which was unbelievably crisp and even
thirst-quenching.

Chris taps the Bud Light finishing tank

We toasted each other (Jennifer quickly handed her glass to
Chris for a refill) and chatted for a while among the gleaming stainless steel
finishing tanks before ending the tour by hearing about the 275,000 cases and
10,000 kegs that were stored in the warehouse.

“I know that sounds like a lot of beer, but that’s not even
two days’ supply for the New England area,” Chris said.

Why does that not surprise me?

After doffing our protective gear, we were ushered to the
hospitality room, where a bar, a crackling fireplace, couches, tables, and
chairs welcomed people for a post-tour beer or two.

Get comfy with a beer in the hospitality room

We were greeted there by Otto Kuhn, the Merrimack brewery’s
head brewmaster, a Purdue University-educated chemical engineer with an
assertive handshake who’s brewed Budweiser everywhere from Argentina to England
to Spain.

“When you make a clean, crisp beer like this, all the
mistakes come out,” he said, explaining the meticulousness with which Budweiser
is brewed. Therefore mistakes are not an option. For Budweiser, that results in a
beer that, above all, is easily drinkable and has no lingering aftertaste. And
the recipe is unchanged since the brewery’s founding.

“You have to be
true to taste and true to style,” Kuhn said.

That’s not to say
they can’t embrace the explosion of food and beer culture, which is why
the Anheuser-Busch Merrimack Brewery recently started offering “Brews &
Bites,” which are monthly, themed food- and beer-pairing events.

We got a taste of the Thanksgiving-themed Brews & Bites,
which included “Budweiser Biscuits” paired with Budweiser; a lovely pork loin
stuffed with raisins, sage, and cloves that was paired with a roasty and caramel-noted
Budweiser Black Crown; spicy mashed sweet potatoes spiked with Matilda pale ale
and paired with Beck’s Oktoberfest; and rich and decadent pumpkin pie bars paired
with Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat.

Stuffed pork loin roast paired with Budweiser Black Crown

The food was great, the beer was great, and together they
were even better. Unlike wine dinners which come with an intimidation factor
and the fear of somehow getting wine “wrong” (Only fools and losers drink White Zinfandel, you oaf!), beer
dinners are so much easier and more accessible. Either you like a beer or you
don’t, you taste what you taste, and it’s all totally OK. For me, the clove
and shallot flavors in the pork loin really popped after a sip of the clean and
pleasantly bitter Budweiser Black Crown, and the Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat echoed
the flavors of the pumpkin pie bars beautifully. At a cost of $15 for advance
tickets, a Brews & Bites event is definitely an easy, fun, and tasty experience that's worth making the short trek to Merrimack for.

Brian and I lingered around the brewery for a little while
after the tour and tasting, visiting the enormous chestnut Clydesdales in their
stables and buying a four-pack of the Shock Top Chocolate Wheat beer in the
gift shop.

I'm deathly allergic to these steeds, so I booked it out of there pretty quickly

And when I posted a picture on Facebook of me and Brian in the hospitality room, my Auntie Jodi replied with a message from one of the guys I’d been thinking
about all day: “Uncle John is proud!”

If You Go:

Free tours are offered at the Merrimack Brewery and include beer samples.

The two-hour long Beermaster
Tour is a fun, in-depth, and intimate experience that delves deeper into the brewing process. The cost for Beermaster Tours is $25 for adults 21+ and $10 for kids aged 13-20. Reservations are required; call 603-595-1202 or email merrimackbrewerytour@budweisertours.com.

To learn more about the complimentary and Beermaster Tours, visit BudweiserTours.com and click on the Merrimack, New Hampshire tab.

Check the Merrimack
Budweiser Tours Facebook page for information about upcoming events,
including monthly Brews & Bites
tours, as well as other events such as the annual Ribfest and the Merrrimack
Bierfest.

If you make this for Thanksgiving, you'll be very happy

Tour, travel and other expenses provided by Anheuser-Busch; all opinions are my own.

I combined them all! I crumbled the meatballs and mixed them
with the pasta, ricotta, and sauce. Chloe got her own mini-dish starring a crumbled
lentil ball instead of meatballs. Next, I spooned the mixture into a greased casserole
dish, grated the last Parmesan nub over the top, and baked for 30-40
minutes at 350 degrees until heated through.

These ugly fellas became a yummy dinner.

Yum! The best meal of the week!

I was also so excited when my friends and family sent me
pictures of their OWN no-waste week dinners! Check them out:

From my Auntie Jodi:
"Baked mac and cheese. Used all my leftover cheese and spices.
Yesterday sausage patties in buns from way back in the freezer,
and Monday spaghetti and meatballs."

From my friend Rosie:
"On the menu for tonight: 3 half-empty boxes of different kinds of pasta,
1/2 container of ricotta, Parmesan cheese, shredded string cheese in my food processor
in place of the mozzarella cheese, and hamburger bun garlic bread."

From my friend Brianna:

"I had wild rice, farrow, and barley
sitting in the back of the cupboard. The meatballs are made from ground sausage and crushed
stuffing mix that was going stale,carrots, onions, and garlic from the fridge, chicken
stock from the cupboard,and kale from the freezer! Garlic bread from a loaf that
was past its prime as well."

Thursday, November 20, 2014

On day three, I realized:
“Crap! I don’t have anything for Chloe to bring to school for snack!”

Then I remembered: We had popcorn kernels! So I popped a ¼ cup
of kernels with a teaspoon of oil in a sauce pan (HINT: Put the salt right over the
oil and kernels before you pop it. Makes the salt stick better!), and sent her
off to school happy as a pig in…no that’s an inappropriate thing to say about
your little girl. As happy as a kid in popcorn.

On the dinner menu that night: Forgotten, defrosted pork
chops and a winging-it stuffing.

First I made a brine for the pork chops in
the middle of the afternoon because I work from home. But it would be easy for
someone to do it before work. A brine is like a marinade but not. Don’t ask me
the difference. I don’t know. But I know they’re really forgiving, and just
need salt. In fact, you could really make a brine out of just salt and water,
if you needed to. But more flavors are better, so you could use apple juice,
vinegar and water, or beer, like I did here.

I dug through the fridge and cabinets and came up with this
brine:

A couple of brine ingredients

A can of Sam Adams Octoberfest beer

About 1 cup of apple cider vinegar
(I bought the raw organic kind last month because I’d read it was a witch-doctor-ish
cure for kidney stones. Guess what? It’s not.)

A couple of smashed garlic cloves

A tablespoon of honey that I’d warmed in the microwave so it could be stirred
into the cold liquid

A few sprigs of fresh thyme and sage

¼ cup of salt

I poured the brine over the chops in a large zip-top bag and
put it in the refrigerator to do its magic for a few hours.

Try to squeeze out as much air from the bag as you can

When dinnertime rolled around, I got busy making the
stuffing out of rescued leftovers:

Slice in half and cube 3 almost-stale English muffins

Toss the cubes in a pan with a tablespoon each of butter and
olive oil and a chopped onion

Stir until the muffin
cubes get crispy edges and the onions are soft

Add chopped fresh sage
and thyme and about ½ cup of dried
cranberries

Cook another minute

Add ½ cup of chicken broth a little at a time, letting the bread drink up little
bits of broth until it's all added

English muffin stuffin'

Next:

I put the stuffing into a cooking-oil sprayed loaf pan

Drained the chops of their brine and seared them over medium-high heat

Baked
the chops and the stuffing in a 375 degree oven (the chops for 10 minutes, the
stuffing for 20)

I also steamed some leftover carrots and made rice to round
out the meal. Ms. Vegetarian Chloe had all the veggie and grain sides with an
egg salad sandwich.

The result? Decent. I really like the stuffing, but thought
the chops were overcooked. At least the brine gave them a nice flavor.

Also, as an aside, I woke up many, many times last night,
and each time it was from the same dream: I was making the stuffing again and
writing this blog post. I guess I was pretty excited about it.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

On day two of our use-it-or-lose it cooking project, I defrosted
a pound of ground beef that's been in the freezer since the summer and made meatballs for the two omnivores in the house. I got creative and made lentil-balls for our little vegetarian, Chloe.

After staring at a bag of dried lentils for a few minutes
like a cat staring blankly at a sink drain, I decided to experiment and make “meatballs”
out of cooked and pureed lentils.

First, I boiled ½ cup of lentils in water for about 25
minutes until they were soft, then drained them and buzzed them smooth in a
food processor.

Treating the lentil puree exactly as I would ground beef, I added
all of the secondary ingredients from my go-to meatball recipe: About 1 cup of panko-style
breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese, an egg, ½ teaspoon of
garlic powder, ½ teaspoon of Italian seasoning, and about a tablespoon of olive
oil. I mixed it all together; scooped and shaped the mixture into balls; and
baked them on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes per side at 350 degrees.

Lentil balls, before baking

I had no spaghetti, (no
grocery shopping allowed, remember?) so I used veggie elbow macaroni that I had
on hand.

I had no spaghetti sauce either (sigh), so I made
that, too, by simmering for about an hour the contents of a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
in heavy puree (why did I ever buy this? I don’t remember buying this.); 2
tablespoons of tomato paste; ¼ cup of red wine (which I somehow always have on
hand); ¼ cup of olive oil; 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, a tablespoon of salt,
and some garlic powder.

Although Brian and Chloe don’t eat tomato sauce on pasta, we
all agreed that the varied balls had a better taste and texture after simmering
for a little while in the sauce.

The verdict? It was all a hit! Especially the lentil balls,
which got an enthusiastic seal of approval from all three of us. For real...I’m as
surprised as you are, to be honest. I’ll definitely make the lentil balls again. It’s a (MUCH) cheaper and healthier alternative to meatballs, and I never
would have discovered it without our little project.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The first day of our use-it-or-lose it cooking project brought
an ear infection for Chloe and homemade ravioli for dinner.

After rushing around to meet my two Monday article deadlines and
bring Chloe to the doctor, I finally finished my work and headed to the
kitchen. It was about 4:00 pm, which left me plenty of time to make homemade
ravioli.

As I’ve written before, making homemade ravioli isn’t particularly
difficult, but it is rather time consuming, mostly because you have to let the
pasta dough rest twice in between kneading it and rolling it out.

The rolled-out dough.

I used that
time, though, to make the ravioli filling, which consisted of what was left of an
already opened tub of ricotta cheese (about 2 cups), some grated Parmesan
cheese (I used the rest of a half-used block for about 1 cup of grated cheese),
about 10 fresh sage leaves (about 1 teaspoon, chiffonade), and the rest of a box
of baby spinach, chopped (about a cup unchopped).

The filling

I stuffed the ravioli, sticking the edges of the dough
together with an egg wash (a beaten egg with a teaspoon or two of water). Then,
I placed them on a baking sheet in the fridge to firm up while we waited for
Brian to get home. They weren’t gorgeous, but they tasted good.

The finished product, before cooking

Digging into the fridge also revealed two packages of long-forgotten
chicken sausage, which I must have bought in bulk because of a sale (lesson
learned!). Happily, the use-by date was still six weeks away, so I threw those
into the oven, too.

Brian, inspired by the week’s mission, whipped up some
homemade garlic bread out of hamburger buns that surely would’ve gone stale
otherwise (I had to buy 6 buns for a 4-pack of Chloe’s veggie burgers). Brian
softened some butter in the microwave, spread it on each of the bun halves,
sprinkled them with garlic powder, and crisped them up in the toaster oven.

Yum! It was a feast that didn’t feel like we were eating
leftovers at all.

Now,
I realize that many people don’t have the time or inclination to spend 90
minutes making homemade ravioli. But that ricotta filling could have easily
gone into stuffed shells, lasagna, or baked ziti. And spending a couple of
hours on a Sunday doing meal prep for the week using what’s on hand is not only
doable for anyone; it’s also a weeknight time saver.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, "what the hell is chiffonade?," this is how the hell to do it:

Monday, November 17, 2014

None of the above headlines really captures what I’m trying
to do this week: Reduce our family’s food waste by cooking with foods that are
already in our fridge and cabinets.

I don’t know about you, but we waste a buttload of food up
in this house. Whether it’s unfinished meals that we scrape off our plates into
the trash, forgotten leftovers, or ingredients that I bought for a single
recipe and never used again, I’m ashamed to admit how much we throw away.

I recently cleaned out our cabinets and tossed so much food,
from a bag of faro that everyone hated and I never cooked with again, to
expired boxes of noodle soup and saltines that I bought when one of us was
sick. I clean out the fridge about once a week, and throw away a lot from there, too.

And
we’re not alone: The Environmental Protection Agency says 20% of what gets
dumped into municipal landfills is food, adding up to a whopping 35 million
tons of food in 2012, says a new
NPR article.

Not to get all “starving kids in Africa,” but seriously…there
are starving kids in Africa. And America. And everywhere.

Still unmoved? OK, let’s say you’re a heartless megalomaniac
and don’t give a shit about starving kids. Think of your wallet, then: If you
spend $100 a week on groceries, that’s $20 a week you’re chucking in the trash…and
$1,040 a year.

Our waste-not week begins with a refrigerator/pantry audit.
We have (among other things):

In the freezer: Mostly
frozen meat, including a pound of ground beef, and some cuts of pork from
a pig that my cousin and his wife raised.

As you can see, there’s a lot of food just hanging around in
this house! This is all without doing the week’s grocery shopping. Without much
thought, I already see a few dishes shaping up:

Homemade raviolis stuffed
with ricotta, Parmesan, spinach, and sage

Pasta and meatballs with
homemade sauce from canned tomatoes and meatballs from the frozen ground
beef

Pork chops in a
vinegar-thyme brine and served with rice and cooked carrots

Peanut butter oatmeal
cookies

Admittedly, this is a lot of cooking from scratch, and I don’t
know about you, but I’m not exactly swimming in time. I have a full-time job
and a kid (who happens to be home sick right now). But it’s a challenge that I want
to take, and I’ll spend the week blogging about it.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Brian’s been going through something that I will refer to
only as the Wretched Ten-Week Kidney Stone Saga, which should give you enough
information to know that:

It hasn’t been pleasant

You don’t want to hear
anything else about it. Trust me.

Suffice it to say we’ve been at the doctor a lot,
which is often part of our lives anyhow, because of Chloe. So…things have been
even more hectic than usual around here.

Which is why a beautiful Samsung Galaxy Tab, sent to me by the
good people at Verizon Wireless* for kitchen-test-driving purposes, has been
sitting untouched in the FedEx box it arrived in for quite some time.

Until now. Chloe was doing her homework and didn’t need help
with it. Brian was busy convalescing. The dishes were done, and the floor was
clean (-ish). I had a rare moment of nothing to do. So I opened the box and
pulled out the tablet.

After a couple of embarrassing minutes trying to get it
connected to our wireless internet (I might have accidentally taken a picture
of the desktop, which made me feel like I wasn’t far from needing one of those evening
community college computer classes for old people), I found the fabulous
library of recipe apps that the Verizon Wireless folks had loaded onto it for
me.

Even though there were hundreds of recipes at my fingertips,
I was skeptical about finding something that we’d all like. My family isn’t the
easiest to cook for. Chloe is newly vegetarian again, and Brian’s list of
absolutely-will-not-eat-it foods include tomato sauce, chocolate, fish, and any
meat that is still on the bone (yes, I take apart and cut his meat like he’s my
giant man-baby, so what? I love him). He also has trouble digesting dairy. Fun.

The first, enticing words in this recipe’s introduction:
“Not even enough time to boil water?”

Yes. This is a machine that knows me.

The Martha Stewart recipe called for broken bits of
papardelle to be cooked right in a pot of boiling marinara sauce that’s been
thinned with water. It’s served with a dollop of ricotta cheese on top. So
easy, so fast. I’m ashamed that I never thought to cook pasta in the sauce
before. It’s the ultimate in yummy laziness.

Of course, Brian doesn’t like marinara sauce. But I do, and papardelle
is my pasta weakness, so I waited for the day when the kidney-stone saga
finally came to an end to make it for myself and Chloe. (My man-baby likes to
eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries when he’s feeling under the weather. So
what? Want to start something?)

I used an entire jar of Newman’s Own brand marinara sauce,
which came to a boil in just a few minutes; much faster than water. Although I
had to cook the noodles longer than the recipe called for, and the noodles
stuck to the bottom of the pan without pretty regular stirring, the recipe truly
was easy. Start-to-finish—from dumping the sauce in the pan to spooning the
meal onto the plate—took about 20 minutes. Not bad!

The resulting meal was a thick and rich pasta dish where the
sauce was much more a part of the noodles than it would have been if you’d
simply poured sauce over cooked noodles. It reminded me of a casserole, in
fact. The addition of ricotta cheese made it even thicker and heartier.

I really loved it, but Chloe? Not so much. Turns out,
she’s inherited her dad's hazel eyes, his appreciation of The Three Stooges, and his deep dislike of marinara sauce.

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck

“Why can’t I have plain noodles with butter?” she wondered,
like she usually eats when I make pasta. Seriously, kid? Oh well.

Since this post is dedicated to how well the tablet
functions in the kitchen, here's a pro/con list:

PROS

Much easier to use than a
cookbook, since there are no pages that flap shut mid-recipe

Much easier to browse recipes via apps
than in cookbooks, thanks to the search functionality and easy sorting by things like ingredients, chef, etc.

Better to use than my
smartphone (which I often use to read online recipes during cooking)
because all or most of the recipe fit on the entire tablet screen. Also, the font
is larger than the one on my phone.

Was big enough to stand
upright on a cookbook stand

Easy
to select and bookmark favorite recipes

CONS

The tablet screen kept turning
dark during cooking for energy savings. I’m sure there’s a setting to make
this stop happening, but I was too lazy to look for it.

I was very nervous about
messy sauce bubbling onto the expensive device. But there are special,
plastic tablet covers designed to solve just this problem. (Or just
stick the tablet in a gallon-sized plastic bag, as CNET
suggests).

Overall, I'd recommend the tablet for cooking, without a doubt.

I would recommend the broken noodles recipe to marinara lovers.

And I wouldn't recommend the kidney stones to anyone.

*Note: Verizon Wireless sent me a tablet to borrow, test, and return. I received no compensation for this post, and all opinions are my own.